Amartya Sen is currently Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University. Born in 1933 on a university campus in Santiniketan, India he was educated at Presidency College in Calcutta then at Trinity College Cambridge. Professor Sen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1998 for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and his interest in the problems of the poorest people in our societies. He has taught at Delhi University, the London School of Economics and Oxford University and returned to Trinity College Cambridge as Master from 1998-2004 . Amongst other international honours, Professor Sen is the recipient of the Bharat Ratna (India); Commandeur de la Légion d’Honneur (France); the National Humanities Medal (USA); Ordem do Merito Cientifico (Brazil); Honorary Companion of Honour (UK); the Aztec Eagle (Mexico); the Edinburgh Medal (UK); the George Marshall Award (USA) and the Eisenhower Medal (USA). Professor Sen’s work has and continues to inform a whole generation’s approach to justice, poverty and equality.